


A Bench

by sphekso



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-11
Updated: 2015-07-11
Packaged: 2018-04-08 19:23:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4316778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sphekso/pseuds/sphekso
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bedelia and Will have an exchange after Dr. Lecter is arrested.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Bench

Will sat on the bench, tentatively glancing toward Bedelia. She didn’t seem to mind, so he settled in. There was so much to be said between them, but neither spoke for the time being. Ultimately, Will broke the silence. “Bedelia,” he said simply.

“Will,” she returned. “What do you think you’re doing here?”

“I think I’m mourning a loss,” he said. He didn’t bother to look at her. He knew she wouldn’t care.

“He would appreciate that,” she said. She flattened her hands across her skirt. “He thought highly of you, you know. Very highly.”

“I thought highly of him, too,” Will said. “Even after… well. I’m sure you understand.”

“I do,” she said. “Unfortunately.”

“Is it unfortunate?” he asked, turning to face her. “I hardly think his true self is _unfortunate._ ’”

“Reasonable,” she said. “Would you say that he’s evil?”

“Evil? Who’s to judge good and evil?” he replied. “There’s good and evil to everyone. I think you understand that, or you wouldn’t be here now. Isn’t that right?”

“It’s right,” she said. She patted his hand. “But you can’t know Hannibal as well as I did. As well as I _do_.”

“I think I can,” said Will. “I think you underestimate our bond.”

She smiled. “Oh, I don’t underestimate your bond. I understand how close you two were. How close you two are, rather.”

“Then what?” Will asked. He looked at her with pleading eyes.

“Then you two had… something. Something I couldn’t hope to supply. I’m sure you already realize this, but—“

“No, I don’t,” Will interrupted. “It’s nice to hear your perspective. He was… important to me.”

“Certainly,” she said, and stared down at her lap. “He talked about you, you know.”

“I don’t know,” Will said. “But it isn’t an unpleasant thought.”

“I thought not,” she said, then paused. “He had an obsession. With you, I mean.”

“An obsession?” Will asked, his brows perked.

“Yes. I’m sure that doesn’t come as a surprise to you.”

Will sighed. “It doesn’t. It honestly doesn’t.”

Bedelia nodded. “So he had an obsession with you. But it doesn’t matter now, does it? He’s gone.”

“Gone,” Will said. “You make it sound like he’s dead.”

“He might as well be,” she said. “He’ll be confined for a lifetime. You know he won’t be judged to fit trial. He’s not going to face execution.”

“I wonder which is the worst punishment,” Will said.

“Quite,” she agreed. “Life imprisonment, or execution?”

“I’d prefer that he not be executed,” he said. “Is that… Am I too attached to a killer?”

“Probably,” she said. “Most likely. But you and Hannibal were always inextricably linked. It doesn’t surprise me.”

“Linked?” Will asked. “We were close, sure, but—“

“But you were linked,” Bedelia finished. “He talked about you. He was my patient, you know, before he was your… what were you, exactly?”

“I’m not sure,” Will said. “We were having conversations.”

“Conversations, then. He was my patient before you were having conversations.” She chuckled. “That sounds so silly, doesn’t it? Conversations? It hardly represents a complex psychological profile. But it’s what fits. Conversations.”

“Yes,” Will agreed. “Conversations. I asked him what role he had, and that’s what he said. We were having conversations. I wonder now what could be so wrong about that.”

“Nothing,” Bedelia said. “You weren’t complicit in his extracurricular activities.”

“Wasn’t I?” Will asked. He gazed into her eyes seriously. “I didn’t stop him. I heard so many things, so many things that should’ve told me what he really was. But I didn’t stop him. I didn’t understand. I didn’t grasp it. He fooled me.”

“Well,” she said. “He didn’t fool me. I knew every part. Does that make me monstrous?”

“Not monstrous,” Will said. “You’d only be monstrous if you’d participated.”

She closed her eyes and drew her hands into her lap. “Participated. It’s funny that you should use that word.”

“Funny?” he asked. “How?”

“It’s not important,” she said. “But I can’t say that I was simply an observer. Some of the blame is owed to me.”

“That’s ridiculous,” he said. “You didn’t kill anyone, did you?”

“Not quite,” she replied.

“Not quite?”

She cleared her throat. “Not when I could help it.”

Will studied her. “I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt,” he said. “But that’s troubling.”

“It shouldn’t trouble you,” she said. “I didn’t eat anyone.”

He sighed long and hard. “Normally I would think you were joking, but… he really did, didn’t he? Eat people, I mean?”

“Yes,” she said. “He did.”

“And you knew?”

“I knew.”

“I could arrest you for that, you know.”

“I’m aware,” she said. “But I think you knew just as well as I did. That night at his house…”

“Don’t mention it,” Will said. “I know what you’re getting at.”

“Then you have no room to talk,” she said. “We both knew, in our own ways.”

“At least I tried to do something about it,” Will said.

“Did you really want to see him arrested? He thought you would run away with him. How do you feel about that, Will?”

“I don’t feel anything,” Will said.

“I don’t believe you,” she replied.

“I don’t have to… damn, I don’t have to lie to you, do I?”

She smiled and put her hand on his knee. “Of course not. I’m the only one you don’t have to lie to.”

“I… If he hadn’t done what he did, I would’ve liked to leave with him. Is that wrong?”

“I don’t think so,” Bedelia said. “He loved you, in his way.”

“In his way that caused him to kill Abigail?”

“Yes. It was his way that caused him to kill Abigail. He saw her as an extension of your relationship. Her death was inevitable, in his eyes.”

Will fell silent.

“Will?” Bedelia asked. “You don’t have to hide from me.”

“I’m not hiding,” he said. “I’m thinking.”

“Thinking about what?”

“Thinking about how you could live with that monster without turning him in,” he said.

She recoiled. “That’s awfully presumptuous.”

“Maybe,” he said, “but isn’t it true?”

She paused. “Yes, I suppose it is. But I’m no worse than you are. Don’t lie; you knew who he was, on some level.”

“On some level? Yes, on some level. But you knew him for what he was. How can you rationalize that?”

“He was my captor, in a way,” she said. “It’s complicated.”

“Complicated?” Will scoffed. “That’s an easy way out.”

“It’s not easy,” she replied. “It wasn’t easy to be Lydia Fell.”

“Wasn’t it, though?” he asked. “It was easy enough to tell _la polizia_.”

“ _La polizia_ ,” she said, a note of humor in her voice. “As if they could see their tails in broad daylight.”

“Their tails?”

“I’ll give you a hint. They couldn’t.”

Will folded his hands in his lap. “I can believe that,” he said.

“Will…”

“Bedelia?”

“He really did care about you,” she said.

“I don’t want to hear that.”

She shuffled away from him. “I just thought you should know.”

“I…” Will struggled to find the words, then gave up.

“He loved you, I think. Not romantically of course, but… he loved you. In his own way.”

“I loved him too,” Will muttered.

“What’s that?”

“Nothing,” he replied. “Nothing at all.”


End file.
